I am a second-year PhD candidate in History with research interests in the religious, political, and intellectual history of seventeenth-century Britain and continental Europe. I am primarily interested in how people have historically justified resistance or obedience to authority based on religious principles and political philosophy. Originally from Denver, Colorado, I received my Bachelor of Arts in American Studies and German from Hillsdale College (a small liberal arts school in southwest Michigan) in 2014. I then completed my Master of Arts in History at QUB in 2015 during which time I studied the Parliamentary fast sermons of the second English civil war.

I have now undertaken a PhD studentship as part of a four-year European Research Council-funded project: ‘War and the Supernatural in Early Modern Europe.’ My dissertation is entitled ‘The reception of Calvinist resistance theory in early seventeenth-century Scotland and England’ and investigates how conversations regarding resistance to authority held amongst continental scholars in the French and German-speaking lands were received by scholars in Scottish and English universities between 1603 and 1640. This thesis relies on previously under-examined Latin-language texts and academic correspondence to illustrate the transnational influence of continental religious and political thought on British intellectual life preceding the civil wars of the 1640s.

Although these represent my primary research interests, I am currently involved in organising conferences on a wide range of topics. I am a primary organiser of the International Women’s Day Conference to be held at QUB in March 2018 on women and religion. I am also on the organising committee for the Tudor & Stuart Ireland Conference to be held at QUB in August 2018. I also served on the Postgraduate Staff Student Consultative Committee for the 2016-2017 academic year and will be organising the Postgraduate History Seminar Series for all of 2018.